I've been browsing the forums for about 6 months now and finally signed up to be a member. With the infomation I have been able to find on this site, a buddy and I have been successful in making our own smoker and we are now attempting to fine tune our smoking skills. We focus pretty much on pork and poultry in the summer time. The fall and winter are mostly spent making jerky, hot sticks and summer sausage. The pics below is what we spent doing this past weekend. We made up a bunch of food for a friends birthday party on Saturday. We had the smoker loaded with 9 racks of babybacks, 8 chicken quarters, a whole pork loin (came out of the package cut into four 5 inch chunks- wish it was whole), and 2 pans of baked beans kicked up with hot sausage, jalepeno, and a few other goodies. Sorry - forgot the Qview after it was all done. The other pic is of 75 lbs of sausage we prepped on Saturday and smoked on Sunday. We always used 1 lb casings in the past but decided to try 50 lbs of it in 5 lb sticks this time around - that's why you see 2 different sizes in the smoker. I'll throw a post up on the smoker builds section to provide some details behind our homemade smoker - but to describe it quickly - it was a computer server cabinet and we added a 2nd door to it to get access from both sides. Outside dimensions are roughty 2 ft wide X 3 ft deep X 6.5 ft tall.
Saturday Smoke
Sunday Sausage Smoke (sorry for the fuzzy pic)
Saturday Smoke
Sunday Sausage Smoke (sorry for the fuzzy pic)